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Inchinnan, New Parish Church, Gravestones

Cross (Period Unassigned), Cross Slab (Early Medieval), Grave Slab (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Inchinnan, New Parish Church, Gravestones

Classification Cross (Period Unassigned), Cross Slab (Early Medieval), Grave Slab (Period Unassigned)

Alternative Name(s) Abbotsinch; Inchinnan, New Parish Church, Early Gravestones; 'templar' Stones

Canmore ID 43095

Site Number NS46NE 7.01

NGR NS 47934 68913

NGR Description Removed to NS 49048 68051

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/43095

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Renfrewshire
  • Parish Inchinnan
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Renfrew
  • Former County Renfrewshire

Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Inchinnan 2 (St Conval), Renfrewshire, cross-shaft fragment

Measurements: H 1.52m, W 0.51m at the base tapering upwards to 0.38m, D 0.18m

Stone type: sandstone

Place of discovery: NS 4904 6803

Present location: in railed shelter outside Inchinnan New Parish Church.

Evidence for discovery: recorded by Stuart in the mid nineteenth century lying in the graveyard. A new church was built in 1900, and the slab was placed on raised plinths outside the church. It was taken to the New Parish Church when the old church was demolished in 1965 and displayed on a brick plinth in a shelter outside the church. It seems likely that it has been re-used as a recumbent graveslab, perhaps in the seventeenth century.

Present condition: this portion of a shaft is broken at the point where it narrows into the (missing) cross-head, and it lacks its base. It is heavily weathered and face C has flaked away.

Description

This almost rectangular fragment was carved in relief on all four main faces, though only faces A, B and D survive. It tapers slightly towards the top, where there are shoulders sloping towards the cross-head. Each face has a cable-moulded border and is divided into three panels of heavy interlace patterns by broad plain bands.

Date: late ninth to eleventh century.

References: Stuart 1867, pl 75, 2; ECMS pt 3, 458; Radford 1967, 183.

Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2017

Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Inchinnan 3 (St Conval), Renfrewshire, recumbent cross-slab or shrine cover

Measurements: L 1.60m, W 0.58m, D 0.25m

Stone type: sandstone

Place of discovery: NS 4904 6803

Present location: in railed shelter outside Inchinnan New Parish Church.

Evidence for discovery: recorded by Stuart in the mid nineteenth century lying in the graveyard. A new church was built in 1900, and the slab was placed on raised plinths outside the church. It was taken to the New Parish Church when the old church was demolished in 1965 and displayed on a brick plinth in a shelter outside the church.

Present condition: the once deep relief carving on the slab is severely weathered and the details are blurred. The slab is largely intact apart from edge-damage especially along the basal edges.

Description

This slab is carved in relief on the upper face A and on all four narrow faces, B, D, E and F. The underside, face C, is plain. There is a semi-circular projection at each corner and broad flatband mouldings along the edges which are plain except for the moulding at the head, which is carved with two twisted cords, and that at the foot, which bears a coiled serpent. There are traces of carving on the tops of the projections. Face A is carved with a central relief cross with rounded armpits, with a moulding below the arms and a wide plain band below the moulding. A single twist separates the ends of the arms from the border, and above the side-arms on either side an animal faces the cross. Two larger animals confront one another above the cross. Below the central plain band there is an interlace knot flanking the base of the cross-shaft. Below the shaft another pair of large confronted animals, and below the another pair with gaping jaws on either side of a central figure.

Face B has a single long panel with animals progressing to the right or head-end of the monument, with a double knot at the left-hand end. The five quadrupeds are set close together, one with its head turned to look back and the central animal facing outwards. The panel on face D contains six animals moving towards the head, with two facing back and one facing outwards. There is a long knot on the wider end, face E, and a single twist on face F at the foot.

Date: late ninth to eleventh century.

References: Stuart 1867, pl 76; ECMS pt 3, 458-9; Radford 1967, 182-3.

Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2017

Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Inchinnan 4 (St Conval), Renfrewshire, recumbent cross-slab fragment

Measurements: H 0.25m, W 0.30m, D 0.12m

Stone type: sandstone

Place of discovery: NS c 4901 6800

Present location: in Paisley Museum.

Evidence for discovery: found in January 2009 on the bank of the Black Cart Water close to the site of the old parish church.

Present condition: broken and worn.

Description

This fragment appears to be part of the top left corner of a substantial slab, which is likely to have been a recumbent cross-slab. It is carved in relief on one face only, and one narrow face (D) is intact, while the other surfaces are damaged. Within a flatband moulding which narrows towards the rounded top, there are the remains of two panels of ornament. Above the dividing roll moulding, there is a quadruped with a bent foreleg and a ball at the rear foot, and an interlaced tail (?) between front and back legs. Beneath the roll moulding is part of a panel of thick-corded interlace.

John Borland’s drawing of this fragment interprets it as part of the top right portion of a cross-slab with part of the upper arm of the cross.

Date: tenth century.

References: Pictish Arts Society Newsletter 50 (2009), 5.

Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2017

Archaeology Notes

NS46NE 7.01 4794 6891 removed to 4905 6804.

(NS 4905 6804) Three Class III sculptured stones from the churchyard at Inchinnan church were transferred by the DoE to a new church about a mile away, when Abbotsinch airport was being extended.

No.1 is a recumbent slab with a long-shafted cross surrounded by interlace, and dates to between the 10th and early 12th centuries.

No.2 consists of the shaft and lower part of the head of a monolithic cross; it now stands 5' high. A 10th or 11th century date is suggested for it.

No.3, the largest stone, is rectangular, 5' 3" x 1'11" x 10", and is probably best described as a shrine cover, probably datable to the early 10th century.

The enshrined relics were probably those of St Conval who was later accounted the patron and founder of the church and whose relics were venerated there in the 16th century.

J R Allen 1903; C A R Radford 1967

These stones were moved to the new parish church of Inchinnan (NS 479 689) following the demolition of the old church in 1977. Re-scheduled.

Information from IAM, SDD, 5 January 1981.

Activities

Photographic Survey (June 1965)

Photographic survey of interior and carved stones by the Ministry of Works/Scottish National Buildings Record in June 1965 prior to demolition of the church.

Publication Account (1985)

The three decorated stones now preserved at the new parish church of Inchinnan were moved to their present position in 1965 when the site of the former medieval church was incorporated into Glasgow Airport. Inchinnan was probably an early Celtic foundation dedicated to St Conval, an Irish saint of the 5th or 6th century, and it served as the mother church for the area known later as Strathgryffe (the former county of Renfrew).

The earliest and most important of the three stones has been placed at the centre of the group. It is probably a shrine or sarcophagus cover, and is decorated on its sides as well as its upper face. In the centre of the upper face there is a cross with interlaced knobs at the base, with two pairs of opposed beasts above the cross, and a human figure and four beasts below. The lower scene represents Daniel in the lions' den, which was a popular motif in Early Christian art. The two long sides are decorated with friezes of beasts, while the head has a panel of interlace and on the base there is a coiled serpent. It is not possible to date the carving on this stone closely but it was probably produced about AD 900.

The red sandstone slab to the light of the sarcophagus cover is a fragment of an u plight cross. Each of the three visible faces is divided into three panels of interlace with the central panel of each face filled with ornament. The cross probably dates to the 10th or 11th century, and was used as a grave-marker.

The final stone is a recumbent grave-slab bealing a long-shafted cross similar to several of the grave-slabs at Govan (no. 64) and dates from the 10th to 12th centulies.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Clyde Estuary and Central Region’, (1985).

References

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